The club was started in 1950 on private timber company land in the town of Newcomb and was bought by the state in 2012. It was slated to be removed when the existing lease expired, which it did on Sept. 30.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s unit management plan for the Essex Chain called for the buildings’ removal, which was announced Monday by Protect the Adirondacks, a green group based in Lake George.

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Management plan

The Inner Gooley Club was a complex of docks, sheds, sleeping cabins, a bathhouse and a main lodge (seen at right) on the shore of Third Lake in the Essex Chain of Lakes. (Enterprise file photo — Justin A. Levine)

The UMP for the Essex Chain considered three options for the buildings, including leaving them in place, using them as an Interior Outpost for DEC staff, and removal.

“The Inner Gooley buildings are located on the south shore of Third Lake, in the approximate center of the Essex Chain Lakes Primitive Area,” the UMP says. “The Inner Gooley Club camp buildings are located in a remote location, with no nearby public motorized access. The classification of the area as Primitive and the remote location were major factors in the proposed future management of the buildings.

“The Inner Gooley camp buildings are not of an essentially permanent nature, since they are small hunting camps formerly on leased land. The lack of ownership of the land signifies that the camps were not placed and constructed to last in perpetuity.

“In accordance with the 2012 ‘Reservation of Leasehold Estate and Management Agreement’ between The Nature Conservancy and New York State, all of the camp structures and property in the Inner Gooley Complex will be removed by the end of the lease-phase out period.”

The Inner Gooley Club was on land owned by the Finch, Pruyn timber company. That land was bought by The Nature Conservancy more than a decade ago and consequently sold to the state for addition to the Forest Preserve.

DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino said in an email that the lessees themselves removed the buildings, according to their lease agreement with The Nature Conservancy.

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Preservation effort

The lessees of the camp, along with Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), began an effort to get the buildings listed on the state and national historic registers. Their hope was to have the buildings preserved for use by the state or public.

Their argument was that, unlike the wealthy people’s great camps the Adirondacks are known for, far more people were members of leased hunting camps like the Gooley Club, and they represented a more middle- and working-class experience. The Inner Gooley Club was added to the National Historic Register earlier this year.

In the UMP, the DEC and state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation agreed that the buildings would be thoroughly documented before removal.

Steve Englehart, executive director of AARCH, said he knew it would be an uphill battle to save the buildings.

“Adirondack Architectural Heritage always recognized that preserving the National Register-listed Gooley Club would be difficult, given the other legitimate competing Forest Preserve objectives at play,” Englehart wrote in an email. “What we have been asking for over the past five years was that state take its cultural resource stewardship responsibilities seriously and that there be an open public conversation about the future of these buildings. This was never done.

“So we are saddened by the loss of these National Register-listed buildings and equally saddened that an open and public discussion about the future of these buildings never took place, as is required by law. Had there been such a public discussion and had the same decision ultimately been made, we would have felt that this cultural resource had gotten the consideration it deserved.”

Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, said in a press release that his group was pleased with the removal.

“The state should be congratulated for removing the Gooley Club buildings. They stuck to the Unit Management Plan and the complied with the law,” Bauer wrote. “The site of the former Gooley Club will make a terrific campsite on Third Lake in the years ahead. It’s an extraordinary place that now fully belongs to the people. It’s the people’s land forever more.”

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DEC plan

The UMP for the Essex Chain calls for the site to be developed into an accessible primitive campsite. The DEC plans to build an accessible lean-to, fishing and water access, a privy and horse-mounting platform.

“DEC has not yet determined specifically where the lean-to will be located or when it would be constructed,” Severino said.

The UMP also notes that the Essex Chain had been privately managed and stocked with fish, and calls for the DEC to continue actively manage the fish population.

“Third Lake will continue to be stocked with landlocked salmon and rainbow trout, and managed in order to protect the native lake trout population,” the UMP says.

There is also the Outer Gooley Club, which predates the Inner Club by a few years. There is an old farmhouse at the Outer Club, which may be kept, but Severino said that a final disposition of that building is still under contemplation. The Outer Club is several miles from the site of the Inner Club.